The Funeral
by scubysnak
Summary: Catherine sees Sara at Warrick's funeral. An emotional encounter ensues. C/S


**Disclaimer: I don't own 'em…**

It seemed as if every single imaginable bad thing that could befall a group of people, happened to our team. I'm not sure if we were cursed or if our propensity for being involved in crime led us to being the victims of crimes so often. Holly Gribbs' murder. Nick's stalker. Nick being buried alive. The lab explosion. The attack on Greg. Brass's shooting. My drugging and Lindsey's abduction. Sam's murder. Sara's kidnapping. Rick being framed for murder. And then eventually, Rick's murder.

Attending Rick's funeral was one of the worst events I'd had to endure since joining the Crime Lab. Searching for Sara in the desert had been trying and emotionally draining, but we had found her. There was a happy ending there. Well, a relatively happy ending considering she abandoned us only a few months later.

I was standing by his grave with Nick and Grissom on either side of me. The rest of the team was there. His ex-wife, Tina, had even bothered to show up.

It was sunny, and there were no clouds in the sky. I remember looking skyward as I felt a drop of rain hit my arm. A light shower fell on us and I thought it ironic that it would rain from a cloudless sky at Warrick's funeral. I suppose the heavens were weeping for our loss. It was as I leveled my gaze back toward the casket that I saw her.

Standing some distance away from us, almost hidden among the grave markers, was the dark haired breaker of my heart. She had disappeared without a word to the rest of us. I later learned from Grissom that she had briefly mentioned needing to get out of Vegas and deal with her problems before they killed her. Being stuck under that car and nearly dying alone in the desert had affected her more gravely than she had ever let on.

No matter how much I tried to reach out to her, she kept me at arm's length. The distance between us continued to grow. Where our time together had been previously spent cuddled together on the couch watching movies, now she was engrossed in running and working out. Instead of sleeping late and making love, she rose early and went swimming. She withdrew from Lindsey, as well. She no longer went to parent conferences with me or attended school functions. There was no more homework help or detailed blueprints for science experiments. Slowly, but meticulously, we lost Sara. Or rather, Sara left us.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise when she disappeared. I mean, little by little, she had been disappearing from us anyway, right? But I was surprised. I was shocked. I was devastated. I was alone. And I dealt with it. There was no way to contact her. No cell phone. No email. No forwarding address. It was if Sara Sidle had simply ceased to exist. Undoubtedly, she had planned this for some time. I accepted her decision and moved on. My life couldn't end because Sara had chosen to push us out of it. No, I had to keep working and living.

These thoughts and a million others roared through my head as I waited once again for her to make her presence known. She never did. I tightened my grip on Nick's hand and Grissom's. I felt Gil pull away, but I never let his hand go.

"Cath," he leaned over and whispered. "You're hurting my hand. Please ease up."

I didn't want to crush every bone in his hand so I did loosen my grip. When the final prayer was spoken and his coffin slowly lowered into the ground, I knew I had to find her. I wanted to know how she knew about Warrick's death and funeral. The information about his services were not released to the public and the only way she could have found out was if someone had told her—someone who obviously knew how to reach her and had been in contact with her. And when I found out who that person was…well, let's just say that life as they knew it was going to be severely altered.

As Rick's family and friends gathered around his apartment to remember him, I was headed across town in search of Sara. Halfway to my house I realized chances were that she wasn't there. I _knew_ where she was. I pulled into my driveway, ran inside and changed before climbing back into my SUV and heading to where I suspected I would find Sara.

As the sun set directly ahead of me, a small car parked on the side of the road came into view. I pulled onto the shoulder behind it. Uneasily I climbed from my truck and grabbed a flashlight and my gun. The last place I wanted to be was in the middle of the desert at night with no protection.

It didn't take long for me to find her. There, seated in one of those folding chairs that people drag to soccer games, was Sara. She held a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. An empty chair sat across from her and I sat down without being asked.

We sat in silence, staring at each other for what felt like forever. In reality, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. I had practiced what I'd say to her if I ever saw her again. I'd run over in my head exactly what expression I'd wear and the tone I'd use. But now, with nothing but opportunity in front of me, I had lost my ability to speak. Luckily, she hadn't.

"I thought I was going to die," she said softly as she looked up at me. "When I fell down beside this tree, that was my only thought. 'This is it, I'm going to die.' Everything came rushing back to me."

She took a few drags off of her cigarette and finished off the beer in her hand before continuing. "I couldn't talk about it with you. I couldn't talk about it with anyone. Nick, maybe, since we had both gone through something so similar, but I never did. It just ate at me every day. The things I did. The things I never did. Everything that had ever happened to me. It all got to be too much. I know you thought I was running away from you…from Lindsey…from us. I wasn't. It was me. Coming that close to losing it all isn't supposed to make you run away from it. It's supposed to make you treasure it. Supposed to make you grab it with both hands and never let go. But I couldn't. All I wanted to do was keep you and Lindsey from seeing everything that was dark and ugly about me. I wanted to protect you. I had to go away. I had to…"

"…break my heart? Leave me with no way of knowing if you were dead or alive? Do you have any idea what I've gone through the last seven months? Do you? Do you even care?"

Sara leaned forward in her seat, her eyes never leaving mine, "I know what you've been through. I know how many days of work you missed. I know how Lindsey's doing in school. I even knew when you changed your hairstyle. I know about Lindsey's first date with that boy that she's been crushing on this school year. And yes, yes I care. Whether you believe it or not, I do."

I looked at her questioningly. I knew someone had been in touch with her because she had shown up for the funeral. I just didn't know who.

"How'd you know about Rick's funeral? Who's been keeping in touch with you? Was it Gil?" I questioned hesitantly. I didn't want to push too much, but I didn't want to clam up and not ask the questions that were begging to be asked.

She wiped at tears I hadn't even noticed were falling and opened her mouth to speak several times before she found her voice.

"No one really knew how close we had become over the years. Everyone thought that there was this underlying tension from me coming in to investigate the Gribbs case and how his actions led to her death. And then fucking Grissom had me investigate him a second time like I was his own person narc," she snorted and turned her head to the side gathering her thoughts before continuing. "You could really count on the guy, ya know? I'm sure he was hell to deal with after the whole Tina fiasco, but he was a good man. You knew that he'd be there for you and would have your back despite the situation. When I had gotten settled in and needed to know how you were doing, I didn't hesitate. I picked up the phone and called Rick. We've talked every other day since I left. Well, we _had_ talked every other day until last week. He'd tell me about your cases. Sometimes he'd tell me what you wore to work that day. He basically related everything that was going on with you and Lindsey to me."

She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, shuffling one out and lighting it. The smoke circled around her head like a halo in the quickly fading desert light. Quiet enveloped us as I waited for her to continue. We sat there while she finished her cigarette and dropped the butt into her empty beer bottle.

I couldn't hold back any longer. "Who told you about Rick?"

"When I couldn't reach him for four days, I knew something was wrong. I called the lab. I asked for Rick and Judy," she sighed heavily, "poor Judy. She told me that I'd need to speak with the lab director regarding Mr. Warrick Brown. When she said his full name and that I'd have to speak with Ecklie, warning bells went off. I told her it was me and she started crying. She told me what had happened and about the funeral. I didn't think anyone would see me. I didn't want anyone to see me."

Anger flooded my senses. She hadn't wanted to see me. She'd had no intention of it. She wanted to get in and get out without detection. "I see," I managed to choke out through clenched teeth. I lowered my head and studied the barely discernable pattern my shoes had left in the sand and wondered whether or not you could cast a good shoe print in this desert sand. Warrick would have known the right way to do it. I frowned at the thought and rubbed out the print with my shoe.

Her heavy sigh caused me to raise my head. "I'm not back, Catherine. This wasn't about me or us. It was about me needing to say goodbye to Warrick. I'm not ready to come back yet."

"Yet?" That word embodied so much possibility. "Not ready to come back yet. That means you will?"

She shook her head, "That's not what I'm saying. I just didn't want you to get your hopes up… for you to think that me being here today meant that I was back….because I'm not. I don't know when I'll be ready. Hell, I don't know if I'll ever be ready."

Her words were like daggers to my soul and prompted my head to ask the question that my heart desperately hoped wouldn't shred it. "What about us?"

She pulled out her Zippo lighter and sat there flipping the top up, striking the flame and then flipping the top down to extinguish it. She cocked her head to the side like she was trying to decide how best to break some news to me.

I pushed myself up from my seat and stepped toward her. Without thinking, I bent forward, placed my hands on either side of her face, and pulled her lips to mine. It was not a passionate kiss, nor was it a friendly kiss. It was what it was. I patted her shoulder as I walked away from her.

I was still in love with her and would forever love her, but I couldn't let Sara dictate my happiness.

As I reached my truck, I was turned around and pinned to the door by Sara. She leaned in, but my hands pushed firmly against her chest as I shook my head 'no.'

"Cath?" The way she said my name nearly shattered what little willpower I possessed. "I don't know what to do about this."

I bit my bottom lip and fought every instinct I had to tell her to take her time and find herself. Instead, I wanted her to understand that there was a limit as to how long I could wait for her. "By the time you do, it'll probably be too late."

Her head dropped and she took a step back, clearing the way for me to climb inside my truck. I couldn't look at her as I cranked it and drove away. I couldn't bring myself to look in my rearview mirror. All I could do was look ahead. My past was, both figuratively and literally, behind me now. And it, unfortunately, included Sara.

Two weeks later as I was walking through one of the lots of impounded cars searching for a lead in a cold case, I saw it—Sara's Prius. I spoke with the guy in charge of the lot and found out that it had been towed in because it was apparently abandoned on the side of the road outside of Vegas. When he told me where, I realized it was exactly where I had last seen Sara after Rick's funeral. I was left to believe that the rest of Sara had finally died in that desert—joining the best parts of her that had failed to make it out alive when Natalie had kidnapped her and left her for dead.

This time there would be no frenzied, massive search. This time there would be no Sofia and Nick finding her just in time. There would be no almost and what ifs. There would be no happy endings. This time, Sara was dead. But at least this time, it was on her terms.


End file.
